


The Crows of Mor Dhona

by fisheverlasting



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Spoilers, Gen, Headcanon, Multiple Warriors of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), a fight in the middle of a city, dragoons liking high places, only mildly though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25976026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fisheverlasting/pseuds/fisheverlasting
Summary: Revenant's Toll is infested with dragoons. They festoon its ramparts like a murder of broody crows, gravitating to the very tips of its spires and fighting over the highest perches.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 27





	The Crows of Mor Dhona

Revenant's Toll is infested with dragoons. They festoon its ramparts like a murder of broody crows, gravitating to the very tips of its spires and fighting over the highest perches.

Here in Mor Dhona, straddling the border of Coerthas and Cartenau, the collar of a thousand year war effort has snapped, unleashing dozens of young fighters hungry for a hunt. The dragons they were bred to hunt are now a contentious prey, roaming further afield. Ishgard was always full of the hungry, and now they are free to roam, so here they are. Adventurers among adventurers, the restless among the restless. No one looks twice at them here: they see the bristling razor spikes of their armor and give them the personal space it demands.

The terrain suits them uniquely. Rather than scuttle around on the ground, at the ankles of malformed crystals and chunks of Garlean salvage, they leap from peak to peak and scramble up rock faces with ease. They are drawn to high places, and even coming down out of the cold mountains will not change this. And luckily, Mor Dhona is not so different from the city of Ishgard, if the fingers of its clawed hand were lopped off and planted haphazardly in the ground to grow into the space however they liked.

You can tell the weather, they say in the Doman quarter, by the crows atop the henhouse. If the day is clear, they will bicker along the catwalks, and the Gloom makes them antsy, leaves them staring up into the sky over the lake as if listening to something just out of hearing range. Rain is little impediment to their sure feet on the shingles. It's only when they disappear you should take notice. Only the worst of weather will dislodge them.

So they are at home in Mor Dhona. They rent rooms for cheap on the topmost floors of its many towers and lurk in belfries, watching the world from above. They thump onto roofs and dangle over eaves and cluster along the walls, swapping fliers and boasting of new experiences and drinking and cavorting and arguing.

Today, an eye pinched against the bright blank canvas of the sky will pick out two flickering forms wreathed in blue and red ribbons of aether, streaking back and forth along the roofs. There, that one has kicked off the side of a buttress and launched themself backwards, twisting in the air to land on the balcony opposite. Their fellow (foe, now) gives chase with ease and direct force, inscribing a clean arc across the sky as the first races to the other end of the open corridor. The twinned pounding of armored feet overhead raises faces below, a couple of cooks from the kitchens above Rowena's standing outside for a smoke. 

They spring onto the high flanks of the tower-cap, slashing at one another as they circle around its peak. A tile breaks under a foot slammed down to propel them up, up, up in a jump. They mean to end the fight, but the other dragoon jumps too, intercepting them in midair. For long seconds, they tangle, grappling midflight, clawing at one another. 

Warned by the falling tile, the street below clears briefly, adventurers taking to eaves and doorways for shelter. A materia-peddler wheels their cart a yalm to the side and fetches up next to the unruffleable chocobos, knowing their shack for safe haven; even in these little scraps, the dragoons have never hit anything more vital than cobblestones.

One second passes. Two. Someone peeks out of the cafe, then ducks back in as the dragoons rocket towards earth. Short of impact, instead of both hitting the pavement at five times terminal velocity, the dragoons kick off one another and part parallel to the ground in a burst of magenta light. 

The gladiator sitting unhurried on the base of the aetheryte tracks their vectors with the restless vigilant instinct of a primal-hunter, even if her hand does not stray to the haft of her weapon.

There: one crashes into the wall, scraping down it in a shower of sparks, and calls a sheepish apology to the cursing guards they nearly sailed past. 

There: the other manages a strange sort of roll as they touch down on a keystone lintel, walking a few steps up the wall and kicking off the ceiling to stop the last of their momentum. They fall like down to the floor below, straightening and brushing invisible dust off their silver-chased breastplate.

They lope back together, size one another up, teeth bared, argument still unsettled. (Mor Dhona closes back around them, continuing as if nothing had happened.) One elezen is slightly taller than the other, and their spears are different, but the differences are subtle to those outside of Ishgard. "You'd fain impugn his honor so, Descoteaux?" barks the taller one who rode down the wall to the shorter one who rolled up it. For a moment it seems they might come to blows again, here on the ground. Out of their element. 

The other dragoon shakes their head, taps the butt of their lance against the ground as a chocobo might stamp at the ground. "Such was not my intent, Renouard," he declares stiffly, head tipped up slightly to meet Renouard's gaze (theoretically) through the visor of his helm. "Hear me: I have fought at his side before and I shall again. His honor concerns me not, only the strength of his arm."

Renouard loosens all at once. In another city, passers-by might take the violence of her movement for a strike. Here, everyone is a veteran, quick of eye and casually wary. No alarms rise: she claps him on the shoulder, hitting him (with typical dragoon precision) on a spikeless patch of plate. "Good! Come, I still owe you that drink!" Descoteaux relaxes, and just like that, it's over. 

"Damn birds," Failicie laughs as they pass her on the way into The Seventh Heaven. Someone cheers from the barside. The door swings shut. 

On his stoop, Slafborn shakes his head, and squints up at the sky. Shading his eyes with one massive hand, he counts the dragoons crouched on the walls, and wagers against rain.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to debz for accidentally inspiring me for this headcanon.  
> Join us on [Emet-Selch's Wholesome Book Club](https://discord.gg/enabling-debauched-xivfic%22)! we will cheer about writing and encourage you forever


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